'We're all coming together': Plum teachers revive festival to support Rustic Ridge families

After stopping by the airbrush booth and trying their hand at carnival games, it was time for the Betancourt family and their friends to swing by the food trucks.

The group had donned their Halloween costumes to attend the Festival of Honor Sunday at Plum Senior High School. The event was revived after a six-year hiatus to bring the community together and support the families who had been caught in the Rustic Ridge house explosion in August.

“We wanted to come out to support Rustic Ridge,” said Plum resident Sangina Betancourt. “And we’ve been able to celebrate Halloween together.”

Featuring live music, games and a costume parade, the Festival of Honor hoped to attract about 500 people and raise $15,000 to be divided among the 15 families who have been displaced after the explosion.

The fundraiser, organized through the Plum Borough Education Association, the school district’s teachers union, was created in the wake of another tragedy: in 2011 to support the Griffith family. Kimberly Griffith, 45, and daughters, Brenna, 12, and Mikaela, 8, died in a flash flood on Washington Boulevard in Pittsburgh.

With families again in need, co-organizer Bruce Shafer said it was time to bring the event back with the goal of raising money for Rustic Ridge and helping strengthen connections among neighbors.

“Plum is like one big tribe,” said Shafer, a sixth grade teacher at Holiday Park Intermediate. “We’re all coming together to try to heal and to help one another.”

J.R. Pilyih, co-organizer and a first grade teacher at O’Block Elementary, said he was pleased to see people from other neighborhoods come out and lend a hand.

“We’ve had teachers from Fox Chapel, Woodland Hills and other school districts who have reached out to be part of this,” Pilyih said.

WQED-TV host Rick Sebak even stopped by to support the cause and the local bands performing.

The musical lineup featured Acoustic Boombox, Meeting of Important People and Say Ahh, each with at least one Plum alum.

“If you had told me when I went to school here that I’d here performing in this parking lot with Rick Sebak in the audience,” Frontman Josh Verbanets told the audience.

Donations to support the Rustic Ridge families are still being accepted through the Plum Borough Education Association.